Texas students watching to see who blinks

It will be interesting to see who blinks in the dispute over federal education funds for Texas.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst left no doubt yesterday about the state’s intent to sue the federal government if it attaches strings on Texas’ $830 million share of the emergency education funding to save jobs of some 13,000 Texas teachers and other school personnel.

Lt. Gov.

David Dewhurst

The House is expected to cast an up-or-down vote Tuesday on the FAA reauthorization bill, which includes the emergency education money – along with the amendment requiring Gov. Rick Perry to certify that the emergency education money would not be used to replace state funds and that education funding would not be cut proportionally more than any other program.

That language is unfair because it singles Texas out, Dewhurst says, and it’s unconstitutional because the governor can neither control the purse string of legislators nor bind them to some future action.

Attorney General Greg Abbott and Perry say the state has no choice but to sue the feds if the amendment stays in the bill, Dewhurst says.

And there’s no chance it will come out, says U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who filed the amendment.

That leaves the two sides faulting each other for shortchanging children.

“Why is Congressman Doggett trying to hurt public education and the school kids?” Dewhurst wonders.

U.S. Rep.

Lloyd Doggett

The congressman’s response: “Governor Perry should stop the complaints and frivolous litigation to get about the job of supporting local schools.”

The dispute had turned highly partisan. All 12 Democratic members in the Texas congressional delegation support the amendment placing restrictions on the state.

All 22 Republican members of the delegation oppose it. They have sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking that she remove the amendment.

“This provision would have Texas violate her own State Constitution. The Texas Legislature has sole authority to determine State appropriations. Moreover, one Legislature cannot bind a future Legislature. Requiring the State to assure that a future Texas Legislature would commit to spend funds in accordance with these provisions would violate the Texas Constitution. Texas is constitutionally prohibited from meeting these severe restrictions, and no other state in the nation is subject to these additional requirements,” Republicans said in the letter.

The amendment involving Texas can be implemented in a way familiar for Texas, Doggett says, pointing to testimony from Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott before the House Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding on March 2, 2009.

Doggett reminds that Scott (who also blasted the pending Texas amendment) told lawmakers: “Since 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we’ve had Title I and we’ve had special ed funding over all those years, and we know how that money comes in and goes out. It’s simply a formula pass through, it goes straight through the agency and goes out to districts to serve economically disadvantaged kids or kids with special needs. So those pots of money, those bags, we know a lot about. So those should not be really causing a lot of questions or concerns.”

The origin of the dispute goes back to how Texas treated $3.25 billion in education money from the federal stimulus package last year. Instead of that money counting as an extra investment for public education, state leaders simply used it as a replacement for state money. The state was short on money. Because of the stock market collapse, the Public School Foundation investment fund lacked the usual $600 million per year used for school textbooks, as an example.

“We didn’t have the general revenue to put into public education,” Dewhurst says.

The lieutenant governor routinely mentions that he favors more education funding and improved education. He mentions the state has added some $12 billion for public education over the past six years.

But school districts are hurting. An estimated 60 percent will have to use reserve funds this coming year to pay for operating expenses. The equity gap between school districts continues to grow.

And it costs a lot more every year simply to cover the cost of enrollment growth. Texas adds about 85,000 students to the public school system every year. That’s the size of an Austin ISD. Texans spend about $11,000 per child, which includes money needed to finance school bonds for new schools and such.

In other words, it costs nearly $1 billion more every year simply to cover enrollment growth. Texas spends about $47 billion a year on public education. So, figure another extra billion dollars a year simply to cover the inflationary costs of health insurance, utilities, teacher pay raises, etc. It costs roughly $2 billion a year just to pay for inflation and student enrollment growth.

The state’s treatment of those federal stimulus funds for education last year upset Texas educators. Nearly 40 Texas school superintendants representing more than 1.3 million students signed a letter to congressional leaders this summer asking them “to prevent history from repeating itself and ensure that any funds Texas receives go to help Texas schools, teachers and students.”

All of the state’s major education groups signed on to the letter: The Texas Association of School Boards, The Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association,

Texas Federation of Teachers, Texas State Teachers Association, Association for Texas Professional Educators, and the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.

They said they did not want Texas school districts “to fall through the legislative cracks this time around.”

A lawsuit will likely put the federal money on hold – and shine a brighter (but not favorable) light on Texas.

“It will pass,” Doggett said of the amendment. “And it’s unfortunate that Gov. Perry and Gov. Dewhurst don’t want to cooperate with us and support public education. There is no constitutional limitation on doing right by our Texas school children.”